The Bo Feng Lineage
by Risingashes
Summary: Mai Bo Feng and the people who made her.


The Bo Feng family had prospered for countless generations, maintaining an unbroken chain of close cooperation with the ruling family of the Fire Nation. The family's name was even known by many from as far away as the Northern Water tribes. The prominent family could be expected to stretch until the end of time- in glory and honour- a proud jewel of the Fire Nation.

That was until Councilman Chi Bo Feng and his dutiful wife Shina Bo Feng found themselves at the 15th anniversary of their union without heir or child to show for it. The truth was all too clear, the couple was incapable of conceiving a child, the Bo Feng line seemed fated to fade in to nothingness. However that year, on the night of the Fire Festival marking the anniversary of the war, Shina was found to be with child. It was proclaimed a miracle, granted by Agni himself.

Celebrations were held, both planned and spontaneous, dancing and merriment were had by all. The Bo Feng name would be preserved and would blaze proudly until the very day that the Earth was consumed by the sun from whence it had been born.

As a girl that should have been a boy Mai Bo Feng was greeted with a myriad of mixed emotions. Joy turned to despair, which quickly turned to a joy so extreme so as to compensate for what may be viewed as slur to a gift from the Fire God.

Expectation turned to panic as the eventual extinction of the Bo Feng name was deemed inevitable. The lower classes cried, the middle classes gave secret blessings for allowing them the chance of ascension, and the upper classes grumbled with mild distaste- any change to the status quo was worrying regardless of possible personal gains.

All in all the girl was a blessing and a disappointment, a dual burden that no child should be forced to bear.

Upon recovery from her ordeal Shina immediately set her mind to salvaging the unfortunate misfortune that had befallen her. The mother had no doubt in her mind that her abilities were up to the task. While continuing efforts to gain a true heir, other measures had to be taken. The girl would have to be trained in all essential arts, her manner refined to the highest degree- indeed Mai Bo Feng would undoubtedly be moulded in to the finest lady ever to grace the blessed grounds of the Fire Nation.

As Mai grew she became aware of several rules that determined how the world worked. These rules had been made abundantly clear, usually directly after they had been broken by the child.

A true lady was reserved and polite. A true lady spoke only when spoke to. A true lady was unassuming and graceful, while maintaining excellence in all appropriate fields. A true lady concerned herself only with those matters applicable to herself or her husband. A true lady should sacrifice personal desires for the continued prosperity of her line, her family and her nation.

As Mai grew she learned to understand many essential and unalterable facts about her existence. The most important was that her parents loved her as much as they could possibly be expected to love her, and that her parents were certainly not dreadfully disappointed that she was not a boy. She was assured that her mother was hard on her only because she wanted what was best for her.

Mai found that her destiny was to marry, and that the person she married would become the centre of her universe until she died. In between there would be children, always children.

Mai was taught how to smile without meaning it, it would take many years for the girl to realise that she no longer smiled when actually happy- the emotion had been seamlessly disconnected from actual happiness too gradually to be noticed.

Mai was a brilliant scholar, a model student, and a picture of proper etiquette and womanly restraint. The girl understood, comprehended and complied with all her teachings. She assumed the emptiness she felt inside was something everyone carried but politely kept quiet about , any brief attempts to broach the subject with her mother were quickly shut down.

It was not until the age of seven that Mai even began to consider a reality that differed from that taught to her by her parents. Around this age she had her first encounter with Princess Azula, a young girl who strived for the freedom that Mai had unknowingly longed for since the day she was born.

Through playdates, arranged primarily to publically demonstrate the strong bonds between the monarchy and the (unfortunately doomed) Bo Fengs, Mai began to spend a great deal of her time with the young Princess. Ty Lee, the free spirit destined to become Mai's closest friend, was also constantly present due to both a duty as a royal companion and an unhealthy admiration for the princess that would eventually survive betrayal, indifference and pain.

The three girls were outwardly so different, one would find it hard to imagine them ever getting along. But each found something within the other that they could cling to. More importantly perhaps was the one underlying motivation that drove them, the Princess, the Nobelwoman and the Courtier all wanted to escape the inevitable shackles of predestination that would see them wed, barefoot and pregnant by the time they were eighteen.

Azula's fire was flamed by a father that desired and demanded perfection, the princess steadfastly refused to acknowledge that any love or attention she had received from either parent had come as a result of its effect on her brother. The silent knowledge however had caused irreparable damage to the sibling pair who once were almost pathetically close.

Ty Lee had suffered from a large number of competing demands for her parents love rather than any specific snobbery. The same scars had formed on Ty Lee's soul nonetheless and the horror that was Ty Lee was created, full of extreme bubbly enthusiasm with a penchant for attracting larger-than-life twists and turns mentally, physically and spiritually.

For the first time Mai was shown another way of thinking, the walls that had been built and that she maintained could be let down, and with her first taste of freedom she had never been so happy or so alive.

Despite the feelings she felt inside and the rebellion that now coursed through her soul Mai remained the perfect symbol of restraint and docility- it took her two comrades-in-arms several years to get over the off-putting feeling of witnessing someone they were certain was having fun, or feeling malicious, or nervous or afraid while keeping any emotion from reaching her face.

Mai's two friends resigned themselves to ignoring Mai's outward expressions and instead to look within.

As per Princess Azula's instructions she trained herself to be a fighter. While the Princess's speciality had been gifted by Agni himself, Mai had not been granted such an obvious talent. Mai chose her talent through simple benign inspiration as she sat quietly in her kitchen being forced to practice diligence and grace by balancing a book upon her head for hours on end. Knives called to Mai, they were sleek, unassuming and deadly.

The art of knife throwing allowed her to conceal and strike without warning. She practiced whenever she could steal time away from motherly tutelage and took to the art as her salvation. Quickly the knives became an extension of herself, never leaving her- not even in sleep.

Knives were so unlike other weapons, they did not have the desperate flashiness of swords, or the clumsy intimidation of hammers. Knives were not used to duel, or to show off to others, they simply slipped from their sheaf and into the exposed flesh of your enemy.

It was at the pinnacle of the girl's friendship, where the girls would dream of adventures and trips to distant lands, that Mai noticed Prince Zuko. She had of course seen him before, often in the hurried company of his mother moving from one part of the palace to another.

But on that particular day both appeared out of nowhere and Mai ran straight in to him, several of her knives falling free of their holdings and clanging to the floor. Their eyes met as he hurriedly rushed to capture the knives that he had somehow known were a well guarded secret and as the final one was handed over gave a slight nod and sprinted back towards nothingness.

Were anyone else around at the time Mai may have been reminded that such thoughts lead down the very path that she so desperately wanted to avoid, but as it was no one was anywhere near her except for the ghostly impression of Zuko's hand on hers which was clouding her senses.

At first the two caught hurried glances, and moved to lurking near each other while training. They shared short sentences and several minutes staring out at a setting sun in silent companionship. Zuko inadvertently made her laugh and in doing so made her whole face come alive.

Laughter was an area that her training had left untarnished, allowing Mai to show what she truly kept inside. The Prince was the only one in her life that had ever bothered to try.

As the budding relationship looked close to actual commencement the nation was rocked by the death of its Fire Lord, and Prince Zuko by the disappearance of his own mother. It was at this point that Mai's mother found a rumour about the Prince and her daughter, and the horror that Mai felt from inadvertently pleasing her mother and Zuko's increasing despair combined to distance the two from each other.

Before the strain could be repaired Zuko was shamed, scarred and banished. The whole affair lasted only a few days, and without a word the Prince set off on a voyage without her, the constant talk of marriage seamlessly disappeared from her mother's lips.

Within a month Ty Lee decided to make her run for freedom, Mai was torn but could not blame the young girl- it was after all a desire that she herself held in her heart. Mai even graced Ty Lee with a smile as she tucked her in to a crate bound for the Earth Kingdom, she would always wondered if the acrobat knew it to be genuine.

Shortly after her losses, Mai was informed that her mother was again pregnant- none dared suggest that it would not be a boy. The lessons that she hated were discontinued, the constant hounding ceased, and Mai was given the indifferent freedom she so desired. She had never felt more alone.

The girl often wondered what she had done to deserve the pain that had been piled upon her, she wanted to know why her mother had bothered shaping and sculpting only to have all that effort abandoned in the blink of an eye, and she wished beyond hope that she could cry for everyone she had loved and lost instead of just being able to lower her eyes to corners and floors without shedding a drop.

A true lady does not allow sorrow to overtake them.

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AN: Hope you enjoyed, I always felt that many people just saw Mai as depressed just because she was "Emo"- so the purpose of the story is to show that she is as three dimensional as any other character.

She seems to of suffered similarily to Azula, the brother instead coming several years later and taking away the focus of her overbearing parents. Couples in such male focused societies tend to have children nonstop until they have a male heir, the fact that there is such a large age gap says something about the couples fertility. And I really saw nothing but restraint in the flashbacks given to us.

I feel like I rushed the second half so if anyone wants to point out specific sections, relationships or events you feel could do with fleshing out I'd be much appreciated.

While next would be Ty Lee I found that as much as I love the character I can't really get a clear understanding of her without at least some family interaction (and what's with hinting at a secret love for Zuko and then having her disappear for 7 episodes?)..


End file.
